By Simon Ebegbulem

BENIN—THE South-South zonal coordinator of the yet to be registered Action Democratic Party, ADP, and former Chief Whip of the Senate, Senator Rowland Owie, has said that the party has concluded plans to cede its 2019 presidential ticket to the North and vice-presidential ticket to the South-East.

He said that the recent Appeal Court ruling which returned Alhaji Ali Modu Sherriff as the national chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has shown that Nigerians were tired of impunity and lawlessness.

Senator Rowland Stephen Owie,

He said: “I congratulate the judiciary for that landmark judgment. It has shown that from now on the political class should avoid impunity and lawlessness in its behaviour.

“However, all those who do not have blood of impunity in the two factions (of PDP), those who will not turn primary elections to bazaar, who believe in fairness, justice and equity, will be admitted into ADP.”

Owie, who spoke in an interview with Vanguard, said that the ADP was formed due to the failure of the All Progressives Congress, APC-led government and what he described as the “demise of the PDP,”  adding that the party when registered will take over the helm of affairs in the country.

“So, for 2019, we have zoned our presidential candidate to the North and zoned our vice presidential slot to the South-East because where there is no justice, there can be no peace. In 1987, it was to be the turn of the South-East to produce the president after Shehu Shagari, but it was aborted. The south easterners have been the bedrock of development of this country, so their rights must be given to them.

“After the North has finished its slot and presidency returned to the South, it will go to the South-East,” he added.

You cannot continue to deceive the Igbos. So the truth is that we now know those who destroyed PDP, we now know those who destroyed  ACN that is now APC, certainly even though the constitution says that nobody can stop any body from entering a political party, we know those to stop, so the issue of hijacking will not come up.”